In recent years, data services have become popular for mobile communications systems, including the very popular so-called short messaging service (SMS), which makes use of underutilized bandwidth of signaling channels to allow short text messages. With SMS, users are able to exchange alphanumeric messages (up to 160 characters in length), and the messages are delivered within seconds of their being transmitted. Of course the networks traversed in providing the messages from one user to another must all be digital cellular networks. Although SMS was originally conceived as a paging mechanism for notifying users of the arrival of voicemail, it is now used primarily as a messaging service. A new use for SMS is a picture messaging application for cellular telephones that is presently being offered by the assignee hereof for allowing users to create and download picture messages into his or her proprietary mobile telephone (e.g., Nokia 3210 GSM) and send them to another, compatible proprietary telephone (another Nokia 3210 or a Nokia 8210 or Nokia 8850). With a likewise proprietary messaging platform (e.g., Nokia Artus Messaging Platform), operators are able to enhance usage of SMS for their subscribers. Such a simple graphic message service provides a black-and-white picture, for instance 72×28 pixels, along with a short greeting displayed below the picture. A maximum size of the greeting is specified, for example 120 characters.
What is needed is a way to create, store and edit simple clip-art type pictures for use in messages sent via wireless communication, using for example SMS. Ideally, a mobile phone would be able to store a collection of such clip-art pictures, and a user would be able to pick one or more clip-art pictures from the collection to include in a message. Even more advantageously, a user would be able to edit such clip-art pictures in the collection, or use existing clip-art pictures as the basis for new clip-art pictures that the user would create and store in the collection, and in addition, create clip-art pictures from scratch. Further, and even more ideally, a group of users in wireless communication with each other would be able to create a clip-art picture collectively, with any user in the group able to help draw the clip-art picture while all the others in the group observe the drawing.